So how many years will it take for Obama to add more to the national debt then 8 years of Bush?

So far it would appear to be about 2.

18-1 on July 10, 2009 at 9:49 PM

By the end of this year the deficit will be at least
triple what it was at the end of Bush’s second term. So the answer to your question is less than one year.

Both of you are awesome!

It is a gamechanger for small businesses and for growth of jobs.
AnninCA on July 11, 2009 at 9:27 AM

Marxist math alert!

It is a “gamechanger” all right – individual citizens and small businesses will be taxed up the wazoo to pay for this, those who have private options will drop it for the artificially ‘cheaper’ public option of inferior, rationed care, and it’s a job killer.

But yeah, other than that it’s a fabulous plan.

Is that what people want? because, that is the program. The quid pro quo for signing on? Freebies. Everybody likes free money. Freebies are the drug of socialism – serving as an aid to cloak the real, but ugly, agendas.

That’s a step in the right direction. I personally think that Republicans are wrong to fight this. It is a gamechanger for small businesses and for growth of jobs.

And we need that.

Hopefully, Americans will now realize the role played in so much of our everyday life by Lawyers & Judges. We, as a people, must zero in on the problems that plague our way of life, rather than allow propaganda to keep us confused and off target.

In my humble opinion, Lawyers have had their chance to run the greatest country ever created. Lawyers have proven to the American people that they are addicted to money, power, and sex, rather than serving at the pleasure the citizens.

Enough with Lawyers… Who should run the country, you might ask. I don’t have that answer, just know Lawyers have written laws that serve their industry rather than uphold the laws that were already in place.

Why is William Jefferson a free man? Why is John Murtha a free man? An entire thread could be written on the subject of “why is (fill in the blank) walking free.”

I also hear these type of ads on our local radio programming. Lawyers are a big part of this problem, and Americans would be wise to identify the problem and start there rather than allow the invent of a brand new beast that is written by the very same people who are a big part of the problem to begin with; LAWYERS disguised as politicians.

Another problem in Massachussets where they implemented healthcare reform is that — no surprise — new doctors didn’t materialize out of thin air to take care of all the new state subsidized patients who now had insurance. Good luck getting a doctor appt there.
We have a $2T deficit. We need to whack spending, and yes, prob raise taxes to dig ourselves out of this hole that we are in. The 40 year consumption party is over, but, hey, we got some cool houses out in the middle of nowhere to show for it.
johnboy on July 10, 2009 at 10:59 PM

I have 2 problems with your analysis. One, while it is true that there is a doctor shortage, that is not a reasonable argument against reform. If doctors are paid what they are worth and not saddled with outrageously unaffordable malpractice insurance, the supply would meet the demand. Obviously ObamaCare will result in even fewer people choosing to be doctors, and the few that remain will be third rate third worlders.

As for raising taxes: NO, that is not the solution. The solution is regulatory reform so that insurance companies are free to offer a menu of options without being mandated to cover items which hike up the cost, and to allow companies to compete over state lines.

ajacksonian on July 11, 2009 at 7:01 AM

.
We can have all three, if we institute tort reform, and pick and choose insurance coverage.

Health care got subsidized by tax breaks.

What are the lessons of subsidies?

Whatever is subsidized gets used uneconomically as its full cost does not fall upon those getting it.

Thus it is over-used.

Thus it costs more as it is over-used and there is a limited supply of whatever is being subsidized.

Prices go up even with a subsidy, and as the subsidy also grows with an inflator there is then a mechanism in place to make costs spiral upwards.

You want cheaper, more affordable, better, more accessible health care?

Get rid of the subsidies that pay for the overhead that doctors have to get in the way of non-productive staff to keep track of health care payments. We have driven the charitable hospitals to the point of no return by pricing them out of the market as charity cannot cope with the spiraling cost of subsidized health care. Physicians would be able to lay off clerical staff (which in most practices I have seen that staff is at least 1/3 if not 1/2 of the total staff of the practice), remove the overhead tracking cost, put direct payments (not co-payments, but actual cost of service) back in the hands of the health care providers, and allow doctors to give personal price breaks to certain income levels and free service to the poor if their practice can sustain that.

The system is rigged and it cannot be fixed as it is.

The UK cannot make this work and now have to import doctors as you would have to be nuts to want to practice medicine FOR a government bureaucrat… some still do as a humanitarian gesture, but they become bureaucrats in doing so. Germany is seeking to make those more well off pay for ‘private’ insurance while still paying for ‘public’ insurance: pay twice, get once, get some ‘reimbursemed’ by the State which is a subsidy. The number of MRI machines in Canada is equal to the number in the metro Philadelphia region…. plus in western Canada if you live out in very rural areas you need to get a maternity room booked 10 months in advance, good luck on that, I tellya. This does not work anywhere.

You can have abundant health care.

You can have quality health care.

You can have affordable health care.

Choose two out of three.

guntotinglibertarian on July 10, 2009 at 11:12 PM

Don’t forget “economic illiterates” and, even more important, “people who have never bothered to read the Constitution.”

Our administration is surely disappointed with the unemployment numbers. But notice that your friendly neighborhood liberal is still dodging behind the months-in-office-inherited-worse-economic-disaster-since-the-Great-Flood excuse. the The dropping poll numbers are expected by The One’s people (to a degree) and the game is to allow the suffering to continue for now and try to control the money supply. All the gold and inflation bugs are sweating more every day. The adminsitration now hopes that the porkulus kicks in just in time for 2010 and definitely by 2012. With a growing economy, a cadre of paid election cheats and a fawning media, The One will be on course to lead us forward. They just take the pressure now and will swerve to the center for pragmatic reasons. Like The One sending predators for hits in Afghanistan. Or the Gitmo flip flop.

They don’t want to try to KILL our traditional capitalism or democracy just yet. They just want to bleed it for The One’s true “victim” constituency. A group which he believes has been cheated by a white, Christian, democratic, capitalistic America. He is Robin Hood with a Hugo Chavez agenda.

What most people REALLY want is NOT government health care. We want our PRIVATE health care made more affordable. Find out what’s driving up the costs so fast and remove those things. A lot of government red tape, unbelievable mal-practice settlements that drive costs through the roof, having to cover the costs of illegals and others who don’t stick around and pick up any sort of bill…those things need to be dealt with.

flyfishingdad on July 10, 2009 at 11:12 PM

Yes but even perfect sense, such as you just so clearly stated, is not processed the same as you and me. In the liberals mind what you just stated means that more government, not less will solve the problem.

Hence, there will always be a rift and a push towards more government control. Complacency is the enemy and the more overwhelmed we get the harder it is to combat it even in the face of perfect sense.

Rovin on July 10, 2009 at 11:26 PM

That old Maggie Thatcher quote comes to mind.

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually,
run out of other people’s money.”

We have a $2T deficit. We need to whack spending, and yes,

prob raise taxes to dig ourselves out of this hole that we are in

. The 40 year consumption party is over, but, hey, we got some cool houses out in the middle of nowhere to show for it.

johnboy on July 10, 2009 at 10:59 PM

You were on a roll johnboy, right up to the “raise taxes” part. This nation will thrive only when taxes are lowered by putting this money back into working taxpayer’s pockets–which will put consumer spending back on track–which will put people back to work.

guntotinglibertarian on July 10, 2009 at 11:12 PM

1. You left “dropouts” off your list.
2. Not as lonely in Mass as you might think; I work in manufacturing, and live in a medium-small town. So, lots of conservatives in my daily life.

we really don’t NEED that MRI

Funny story: I suffer from chronic sinus infections. I went to a new GP, looking for anti-fungal medicine to deal with it.

He suggested an MRI, just in case…just in case…the symptoms with which I had been familiar for 20 years might happen to be some sort of brain tumor.

I told him I didn’t want an MRI.

He was astounded and assured me that my insurance would pay for it.

I told him I already knew that, but that I didn’t want to over-use the healthcare system. I also told him that I understood that he needed to protect himself in the 1-in-a million case that my problem wasn’t sinus, but a brain tumor, so I would be happy to write out and sign a release of liability against him, if he would just stop screwing around and give me the prescription I knew full well that I needed.

He was…speechless.